


Hello From The Other Side

by SpicyCheese



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Major character death - Freeform, Post- Shaw being rescued from Samaritan, Post-Season 4, So if that's not your jam I probably wouldn't continue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 21:59:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5886925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyCheese/pseuds/SpicyCheese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dealing with death, from Shaw's perspective. (Mind the tags, please).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hello From The Other Side

 

*_*_*_*_*

 

You see Root catch the bullet, center mass. You see her crumple. It takes 8 seconds, max, to scoop her and drag her inside the van but by then her shirt is already stained deep crimson.

You rip your own sleeve off and press it to her chest.

"It's fine, it's fine, Root, you're going to be _fine_ \- you hear me! _Root?"_

The cloth is soaked through and blood bubbles through your fingers where they're pressed over her heart. You push a little harder, as if pushing harder could heal it. But the bullet was a direct hit. Through and through.

Medically she doesn't have a chance.

" _Root?"_ You ask again, more forcefully this time, and the reward is her eyes focusing on yours once more. "Root, stay with me okay? We'll be back to base in 2 minutes."

“I found you,” she says, the corners of her mouth quirking up for just a moment before settling back to the grimace.

“Yeah, you did,” you say dumbly because you don’t know what else to say. It’s the truth.

She moves slowly, slipping her hand over yours, where they’re still pressed to the wound. Your gaze follows up her arm until you meet hers once more. “Sameen,” she exhales and it’s a question and a promise and so much _softer_ than anything you’ve ever heard in your life. You want to say something, something that soft too, but you don’t know the words and even if you did, you’re not sure you even _know_ that kind of soft. So you just stare back, return her gaze until it becomes unfocused, and the pressure of her hand on yours finally slacks.

You enter a trance almost, operating on muscle memory. 30 compressions, 2 rescue breaths. Over. And over.

Blood seeps from the wound with each compression and rescue breaths go nowhere but you continue. Somewhere John’s voice is telling you to stop but you can’t. You won’t. Your mind is blank, where normally you would be focused. Focused on vitals, on fixing the person under your care, but try as you might there is nothing. Nothing but the 30:2 ratio, pumping and breathing and going again because you need to _fix this_.

“Shaw, you need to stop.”

John’s dulcet requests barely register and it’s not until his arms wrap around you like a vice, pulling you off her and out of the van, that he truly gets your attention. His choke hold tightens and the surroundings come back into focus- the alley near the subway’s secret entrance. You didn’t even notice the van had stopped, let alone arrived.

“You need to _stop_ \- It’s done. _It’s done_ ,” his voice hoarse and gruff in your ear and your only thought is _Fuck no it isn’t_.

You rip at him with everything you have but his grip just tightens more, restricting your airway. He’s yelling something over and over- but in the end somehow it is Harold’s request, barely more than a whisper, that you finally hear.

“Please, Ms. Shaw. Let’s just… bring her inside.”

 

*_*_*

 

You sit with her.

Well, you sit with what used to be her.

In the first half of your 3rd year of Residency, you did a neurology rotation. Many patients were in comas there, kept alive solely by the machines they were hooked up to. Loved ones visit, holding the patients’ hands, even talking to them. Despite all the scans and tests you showed them, they still insisted the patient could hear, could experience. That all hope was not lost.

You’ve never really been religious, but you have been around death enough to tell if a person's (for lack of a better word) _essence_ was still present. You’ve been around death enough to know when someone was a person, not just an empty shell.

As you sit next to the body, you can tell Root is gone.

Beyond the obvious physical signs, there’s something else… something distinctly missing from her now that was so blatantly there before.

In life, you could always tell when Root was near. You don’t believe in auras or any of that shit, but you can’t deny that the woman radiated _something_ \- an atomic element all her own maybe- because you swore something in the air changed when she was around.

Root liked to think she could get the jump on you, but she never did. You could feel her coming from a mile away. She radiated it- that energy- like radio waves, increasing in strength with proximity and vibrating through you like a tuning fork. Or maybe like the hum of a whirring hard drive.

Thinking about it now, you wonder if anyone else felt it. John and Finch never mentioned it. Maybe it was like those noises that only dogs can hear- a vibration too high for most ears. Maybe it was a frequency only you could pick up.

You find yourself wishing you knew how to give more than radio silence.

Sitting next to the cot now, in the subway, you’re suddenly struck by the need to connect. Before you can quash the impulse, you reach out and touch her hand (the hand that was hers- she’s _gone_ remember?). Her skin is dry and cooling and there’s only stillness there. Whatever you were grasping for is long out of your reach.

The fullness of reality sets in. Root is gone. ( _Dead,_ you tell yourself. _The finality of it is important_ ).

The goopy black tar sensation that’s been simmering in your gut for the last hour threatens to boil over. It’s a sticky, oozing feeling that you’ve only experienced a few times before, and not since Carter. Since Cole. Since your father. It would be so easy to let it take over, to let that dark something consume you. You can already feel it seeping in, threatening to eclipse everything else.

You’d rather it be anger. Anger is comforting in its familiarity at least. So you focus on that instead of the unpleasant blackness. You focus on anger and let it insulate you. You let it fill that void that is so achingly clear now that she’s gone.

It’s especially easy right now because you _are_ angry at her. Angry that she could be so stupid- so careless with her life. _Didn’t she understand how important she was?_ Angry that despite Finch dispatching you and John to this mission, she still showed up. You’re angry that she goes in the field at all when there’s plenty to do back in the safety of the base, with the Machine.

More than anything, you’re angry at yourself though- and that’s _way_ too akin to that black oozing feeling- but you can’t stop it.

You’re angry you let her join the mission instead of sending her packing. You’re angry that you _listened_ when she yelled to get out.

Maybe that’s what you’re most angry at- that you _listened_. That listening is all you’ve ever seemed to manage with Root. All those words, gestures, and touches she continually sent your way… you always heard them. You heard everything she said (and didn’t say). You were always listening, but _only_ that.

You’re angry that other than the kiss at the Stock Exchange, you never really reciprocated those messages she sent you. You may have been on Root’s frequency channel but you never gave her a ‘Roger’. Let alone ‘Wilco’ and now you're mad as hell about it.

A shadow casts over you from behind, interrupting. Normally you’d be appreciative of some break in those kinds of thoughts (normally, you wouldn’t be having them at all) but there is nothing normal about today.

You’d like nothing more than to be left alone but you realize suddenly how _tired_ you feel. There’s no point in ignoring him, you know he won’t leave until he gets whatever it is he’s come for from you.

“Finch.”

“Ms. Shaw?”

There’s a compulsion to speak but you’re not sure what you want to say. You dimly realize you’re still holding her hand. The hand that was hers. You place it back on the cot, carefully.

There’s another hand though, a soft hand on your shoulder. The weight of it is sold and warm and the reality of it grounds you slightly.

“I never…” You begin, not knowing what comes next.

“She knew.”

The words sound louder than they should, clattering amongst the stony silence. Even without his AI, Finch has always had a creepy omnipotence to him.

“She knew,” he says again. You don’t know if it’s true, but it’s clear he’s confident about the assertion. “You didn’t need to say it. It was clear. From everything you did. She knew.”

You manage a nod and you’re thankful when his hand remains on your shoulder as you let your own head sink into your hands.

Years ago you never though there would be a need to worry if what you had would be enough for someone else. You never imagined there would be a someone else that would be enough for you. But there was and now that she’s gone you realize just how much of you she filled up. All the cracks all the crevices. The things that others would complain were missing, never felt missing when she was around. They never even mattered to her in the first place, it seemed. Root was far more than ‘enough’, for you.

You hope you were enough for her, too.

 

*_*_*_*_*

**Author's Note:**

> Clearly, this is what you get when you listen to Adele too much. Fingers crossed Season 5 doesn't offer anything nearly as depressing.


End file.
